Post subject: The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind and the American Indians

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:40 am

Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:18 amPosts: 1

I am new to this society but am "old" in terms of Jaynes --- having read him in 1970 and several times since. The one question that has always bothered me is his notion that the turmoil in the Mediterranean (I forget when) disrupted the bicameral society and somehow stimulated the breakdown and resulting development of consciousness. (I'm working from memory here, so please excuse my vagueness). He has the Iliad as a bicameral story and the Odyssey as a conscious story, narrowing the timeline for the transition.

The problem I saw back then and ever since is the American Indians who were already here at the time of the breakdown and never suffered the same traumas. According to theory, then, shouldn't the American Indians have been bicameral at the time of contact with the Europeans? And, similarly, shouldn't the many primitive tribes discovered in the 20th century have also been bicameral? Has anyone ever studied the possible evidence for bicamerality in these peoples? If they were fully conscious in the modern sense when first contacted (as seems to be the case) then doesn't this undermine Jaynes' proposition, or at least he proposed scenario for how and when it happened? He also never explained the origin of consciousness in the African peoples who did not have contact with the Mediterranean world, or with remote parts of Asia or Australia.

I cannot imagine that many others have not noticed this problem and, since the theory is still viable, they must also have resolved the apparent problems with it. I would very much welcome references to literature that addresses these questions.